Re: Finally Wirtanen, hard nut to crack.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 signatures.:To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 signatures. XT8 classic../To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 signatures. 102 synscan To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 signatures./Celestron 60AZ,Skywatcher 130PDS.BINOCULARS:Garrett To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 signatures. 11X56 LW.CAMERA: Canon 1200D(T5), Mallincam hyper colour.BLOG:To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 signatures.

Some people don't understand why I love astronomy so much! I cannot understand why they don't!To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 signatures.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 5 or greater. You currently have 0 signatures.

Re: Finally Wirtanen, hard nut to crack.

Way to go John.
I think I heard your groan all the way over here ! :-)

THE SATISFACTION OF SIMPLE THINGS...YESSS!

Bravo Sir !

LOL, yes, those powerful bino's

Originally Posted by Gabby76

Congratulations on the successful observation John!
Quite a job of perseverance also I may add

Thank you, a bit wet, that all.

Originally Posted by j.gardavsky

Congratulations John!

That's an absolutely top report of yours, and a great gift to the X-Mas.

Glad, you have cracked your Christmas chestnut,

JG

Thank you, finally I did.

Originally Posted by combat48

Well done, John!

Had my first sighting on 7 Dec...couldn't see it naked eye though (old age I guess), but found it pretty quickly in my 10x50 binos using the S&T chart. Observed the "sucker" for about 4 hours off and on through my SV110ED at low mag (35x, 22mm TV Panoptic).

Dave

Thank you. I would have liked observing with the refractor too, those rains kept me from it..

Originally Posted by sketrip

Gefeliciteerd! (really hope I got that right)

Same conditions here - only seen in the 10X50 so far - my observation matches yours as "a faint smudge of non stellar light"
Take heart, we are all nutcases & slightly cracked.

Way to hang in and get the target John.

Yes, you have got it right! My wife confirmed the middle part of your remarks!

Originally Posted by helicon64

Excellent John. Having just seen it myself a couple of days ago I heartily agree with you. Eridanus/Cetus are not very obvious in my light pollution so star-hopping in one of these vacant areas of the sky is not so easy. I'm glad you persevered and found it - an early Christmas present for you!

Nice work John! Way to hang in there! Skies here have been terrible for days with big storms moving through. My only chance is this Wednesday night and as my (bad) luck would have it I have a company Christmas party that night! Afterward it is an hour and a half drive home so I am hoping that the cloud gods will at least give me a sporting chance late that night!

Good luck to you! I hope you'll succeed!

Originally Posted by bladekeeper

Congratulations on cracking this nut, John! Us fellow nut jobs are pleased with the effort. I suppose you could call that combat astronomy?

Glad you liked it. In the meantime you cracked him too. Congrats on that!

Originally Posted by kingclinton

Goed gedaan John!

As always, perseverance pays off.

Jan van Riebeeck wouldn't have said it better

To all:
Perseverence increases the chance of succes, as I always have experienced. Although the pitfall of autosuggestion is always wide open too. With relative smaller instruments even wider. As everybody I painfully experienced that too. Thanks.

Re: Finally Wirtanen, hard nut to crack.

Originally Posted by John Baars

To all:
Perseverence increases the chance of succes, as I always have experienced. Although the pitfall of autosuggestion is always wide open too. With relative smaller instruments even wider. As everybody I painfully experienced that too. Thanks.

Hello John,

that's why I have a few binoculars to confirm the view, see the attached pic,
and why every faint fuzzy through the frac must be confirmed with at least 2 different EPs,
and with my left and right eye, ha, ha, ha.

Looking forward to your sketch, uploading the pics will be fixed soon,

Re: Finally Wirtanen, hard nut to crack.

Unlike some lucky observers who were able to see the comet with the naked eye, I observed him this evening with my 120mm refractor. It sure was not the clearest of skies of last week, but at least far less clouds.

I observed with a 24mm Panoptic, a recently bought 25mm CJZ Plössl, both 2.5X barlowed and a single 9mm Fujiyama. ( 37.5X, 36X, 94X, 90X and 100X) Although there were some minor differences between the performance of several eyepieces, the overall view of Wirtanen was the same. In the refractor I saw a slightly condensed core and from time to time it seemed as if the light in the halo was not evenly distributed. Too faint however to be sure of it.